Keep on Running
by Wishing For Rainy Days
Summary: This is a story of Remus Lupin as a child, just after his first transformations into a werewolf... It's about a little boy overhearing his parents arguments, knowing himself to be the cause... It's about Remus starting to understand what he had become.


_**DISCLAIMER:** The ideas are mine, the characters, sadly are not._

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><p><em>" ... It's hard to understand. All I know is you've got to run. Run without knowing why through the fields and woods. And the winning post is no end. Even though barmy crowds might be cheering themselves daft. That's what the loneliness of the long distance feels like."<em>

**_Colin Smith, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner_**

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><p>He remembered running.<p>

The freedom of running. Of feeling the wind cold and fast against your body, of moving so fast you might have been weightless, of dodging trees and stones and never letting anything slow you down. Of allowing your feet to take you wherever they want to go, never thinking about it. They're going home. Maybe because you know the way so well. Or maybe it's the scent of blood that's drwing you there.

The several hundred pounds wolf jumped over the man who stood alone in the forestfront, grasping a wand. The animal knocked him down, standing over the wizard, his jaws open, leaking drool and blood all over his face. And then he blacked out, all the weigh of his body over the victim's chest cage.

Except it was now much lighter. It was the weight of an eight-year old Remus Lupin, motionless. He breathed, and it was all. He was unconscious even of the pain from the scratches and bruises which covered his undressed body.

The sun had risen on the horizon.

Remus' father stood up, picked him up in his arms, and carried him back to his mother's care.

(…)

"There was blood all over his mouth!"

"That could have been anything!"

"Don't! Don't do this! Don't act like I'm trying to blame him, do you think I want it to be him? Well, I don't!"

The door of Remus' bedroom was closed, but it was still not enough to deaden the sound of his parents' fight. He sat over his bed, by the window, the tray of food with his breakfast untouched over the night stand, a muggle newspaper on his hands. He'd found it crumpled on his father's study, and picked it up. Remus thought muggle papers were funny. The people in the pictures remained still, no matter how much he poked them with his fingers. People in magic photographs were a lot less resilient.

_April, the 15th_, it read on the top of the page. Fall. It explained the fallen leaves on the trees of the temperate forest he could see from his window. These were yesterday news. There was a big article, occupying the whole cover, something about a girl being murdered. _Deadly beast in town_, read the title. Remus was absorbed in his reading. A copy of the latest issue of a comic book lay on the floor, forgotten. The amazing adventures of an under-age wizard, or something like that.

"We have to move!" His father's voice sounded urgent.

"Again? It took us weeks to find a town this close to a forest!"

"We'll find another!"

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know, but we will find it!"

"But we have barely settle down here! The china is still in boxes! It has been-"

"Three months! We have been here for three months, and it's the third time this happens! We _have_ to find some place else to live."

"And then what? How long do you think it'll be till this happens again?"

There was an audible pause there. They were screaming, probably standing on opposite corners of the kitchen. Somebody had slapped a newspaper against the table top, perhaps a copy of the same newspaper Remus had in his hands now. The newspaper he tried to concentrate on, desperate not to listen to yet another argument between his parents.

"_Alice L., 6 years old was found dead this morning, on the edge of the so-called Whispering Forest, by L.T., a local truck driver. Her body had been horribly mutilated, torn apart in several pieces and exanguinated-"_

"How long?" His mother insisted, from the kitchen.

"I don't know. But if it happens again-"

"It _will _happen again."

"_If_ it does, we will move again. We will keep finding new places, until we can control this."

Remus could not see his mother crossing her arms in front of her body and looking away from her husband when he said that. He could not see her biting her lower lip in disbelief. Nor was he trying to picture her in his mind. He was trying to do exactly the opposite, focusing on the lines of the newspaper instead of the sounds from the kitchen.

"_Z.P., a professor of zoology in the University shares his personal analysis of the case: 'Based on the size of the bite marks, and the footprints I'd have to say it's a wolf. Not an adult wolf, for sure, but incredibly strong.' The criminal investigator also believes the beast responsible for the latest animal attacks to be a wolf: 'It's not an ordinary wolf, though. The trails left around the victm indicate it has a tufted tail, there's no wolf in the vicinity who has such a characteristc...'"_

No matter how much the boy tried, his ears were on the conversation in the kitchen.

"We _will_ control this, eventually, darling. I've talked to Hector, he says he's working on a potion which might help cases like Remus'... "

"Of course you spoke to Dagworth-Granger!"

"He can help us! He has found society, ah- the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, I think, and he will have them working on something that might make things easier for Remus. Nobody has work on it before because there were not many wizards interested in helping -"

"You can't even say it, can you?"

"... people, with his condition."

"Condition? You think this is a disease?"

"We _have_ to think this way."

"What if we are wrong?"

"We are not wrong!"

"What if we are? It's the third time this has happened here, what about the others? How many are there? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine already? How many children?"

Fourteen children. Remus thought. Fourteen scraps of newspapers just like this one. Of course he didn't start counting them before they moved for the third time. He didn't understand it then.

"Stop it, all right? I know it's not okay. It is what it is."

"He is a k-"

"Don't say it."

"Why not? Are you afraid? Is that why you don't want me to say it?"

"No. I don't want you to say it because it's not true. I've talked to him, he doesn't remember it. He can't control it. He can't think. He's not himself when it happens. It's not our little boy who's to blame for these people's lives."

_Is he not? Am I not?_

At this point, Remus gave up entirely on his reading, and stared outside, at the fallen leaves describing circles in the air as they were taken by the wind. His parents' voices had become so low he couldn't listen to them any more. He listened to some steps, and it was all.

The steps he heard were the sound of his father walking towards his young wife. He placed his arms around her waist, pulling her close to his body. He brushed some hair from her face with his right hand, and smelled the sweet floral fragrance of her perfume.

"Look at me, please." He lifted her chin, gently. "I'm sorry we have to move again. I know this is hard on you, and it's my fault. I know-"

"No. No, love, don't say it like that."

"But it is. If hadn't-"

"Shhhh." She shushed him, and placed a finger dearly over his lips. "Please, don't talk like that, darling. I don't blame you for what happened. You know that."

He looked down, feeling his wife's finger sliding away from his face. He blamed himself enough for the both of them.

"It's true, I don't." she insisted. "I just- I just worry about him. He's not going to grow up like a normal boy. He has no friends his own age, he spends all the time in his room, and he's starting to ask questions."

"I know. I know, but we can't answer him, darling. He's just eight years old, he's just our little boy! Whatever childhood he has left we have to protect it."

"How can I protect him, when you don't let me go near him?"

"Darling, there's nothing for you to see. The transformation, it's so painful, he yells so much."

"I can stand it."

"Darling, please. I know you want to be there for him, but when there's a full moon up, you can not. Do you understand me? Please, it's too dangerous. He- changes. I saw him- I saw him changed this morning, he had no idea who I was, he jumped me, knocked me down,- He could hurt you."

"..."

"Maybe you should go to his room, see if he's eaten anything. I have to meet Hector-"

"_Of course _you have to meet Hector." The young woman sounded impatient and turned her back on her husband, crossing her arms once more.

"Hector is my best friend!"

"Oh yes, I remember the two of you at Hogwarts, of course, up and down the corridors, doing everything together. Even after we started dating I had to _schedule _my time with you-"

"It was not like that!"

"Of course it was! Will you be partner in the transfiguration essay? I can't, I'll work with Hector! Let's go to Hogsmeade together? Huh- Maybe later, me and Hector have got to do something-"

"I knew you would bring that up again!"

"I don't know why you didn't invite Hector to the winter ball. Or married him, for that matter. You seem to like his company so much better than mine!"

"That's not true!"

"How could you not? When he has all those exciting things going for him, and all I have is a sick child?"

"Stop! I _don't_ prefer his company to yours, it's just different. He's my friend, my best friend, I trust him!"

"You don't trust me."

"It's just different. I trust him to help me, I trust him to tell him anything, anything in the world, things I can't tell you."

"You hide things from me."

"I can't tell you, how it goes whenever Remus transforms." He started. "I can't tell you I have to chain him down, otherwise he will pull his nails off scratching himself during the transformation, like it happened before. I can't tell you the stupefying charms don't work on him and he's awake the whole time. I can't tell you how much he hurts. Because you don't have to hear it. But I have to talk to somebody."

There was water in her eyes as they stared at one another. There was more of course, much more. He couldn't tell her he found a certain waitress smokin', specially not using the words he could use with Hector, because she would freak out. And he couldn't talk to her when he was feeling like giving up, like nothing was going to work, like nothing would ever be good enough. He simply couldn't.

"I trust Hector," he continued, "to be there for you, and for Remus, if I can't anymore. That could happen. The world is changing, you know that. You have heard the rumours of an impending war. You read muggle newspapers, you've learnt about the death counts."

She said nothing.

"If there are fights, anything could happen. They might come after Remus, him being what he is, and I will never allow anything to happen to him. I'll fight, and if I have to have someone by my side, it'll be Hector. I trust him to watch my back, as he trusts me to do the same."

"..."

"I know I can count on him. I knew when I asked for his help to come up with a potion he would give everything he had to this effort, and I knew he would do so without exposing Remus. I know if I ever need to walk into a dark forest in the middle night to retrieve my son, I know he'll walk in with me, regardless of the dangers, that's how much I trust him."

"But not me. You wouldn't let me get out of the house in a full moon. You don't trust me."

She sounded hurt.

"Of course I do. It's just a different kind of trust. I trust you to take care of _our_ son when I bring him back home after the full moon, all covered in scratches and bruises, bleeding, week and unconscious, I wouldn't trust anybody else with that task."

"I'm a healer."

"You're more than that. That time, that time when he broke his arm, remember? He was barely breathing when I brought him to you, he was not responsive to pain, he was bad. Any other healer would have said that that was it. I thought that that was it. But you didn't. You came up with a new combination of reanimation charms, you stayed with him all the time, you brought him back."

"..."

"You did not gave up. That's how I trust you. I trust not to give up. Even when I have."

He breathed slowly now, almost as if he was tired. They were standing, quite close from one another, but he didn't touch her. She didn't seem to want him to.

"I trust you to be my strength. Don't you see? Don't you see that that's the reason I try to protect you in the full moon? If you got hurt, do you have any idea what would happen to me?"

She looked him in the eye.

"I could not live without you." He said simply.

And after a few meaningful seconds, she held his face between her hands, stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him.

A while later, Mrs. Lupin knocked on her son's door, barely giving him time to hide the newspaper page under his pillow.

"Remus?"

"Yes, mum?"

"How are you feeling today, son?" She asked, walking towards him and invariably placing a hand over his forehead, feeling his temperature.

"I'm okay. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Mommy's pain killing spells are really good, aren't they?"

"Yes, mom." he said, laughing a little bit.

She smiled. Then she leaned in to kiss his cheek, and ran her fingers through his hair.

"I'd say you need a hair cut."

He shrugged.

"I'll leave your tray here so you can eat something, okay, Remus? What is this?" She asked picking up that comic book from the floor on her way out of the room. "Oh! I loved these stories when I was a little girl. But maybe you have grown old for this already."

Remus had grown too old for a lot of things already.

"Mum?" He called her again, almost as soon as she reached the door.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Where did you say I got these scratches again?"

She looked him in the eyes for a fraction of a second, and looked away.

"You were running."

He remembered running.

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><p><em><strong>Author's Note: I<strong>t took me about an hour to write this. It started out as the first of a series of 500 word drabbles about the five (or seven, or nine) times Remus Lupin has killed somebody. But once I was writing, the dialogue between his parents just got larger and larger, and soon it was over 2000 words long, a one-shot on its own._

_I don't often write about married couples. I find it difficult, specially because my faith in marriages is so low. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite fond of Austen and Gaskell, and other Victorian authors, and their stories always end in marriages, and I find it all very romantic, but for some reason, in real life, I don't marriages working. That's why I don't usually write about them. But I read somewhere about the value of stretching beyond your comfort zone, as a writer, so here it is._

_I could have made up names for Remus' parents, but I would have used them once or twice at most, and that convinced me not to. I hope the dialogues are not confusing._

_I am not a native speaker, and I am quite aware this text needs a Beta-Reader. As soon as I find one, I'll upload the corrections... But I was rather eager to post it. It's so fresh (I've just wrote it), and I could use some reviews. Lately I've been posting such long notes after the texts, and receiving so few reviews, it feels a lot like talking to myself..._


End file.
